


patching the holes in your dreams

by peculiar_mademoiselle



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Dreams, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23676052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiar_mademoiselle/pseuds/peculiar_mademoiselle
Summary: It's been almost 40 years since John's death.Paul dreams.
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Comments: 25
Kudos: 85





	patching the holes in your dreams

Now, whenever Paul McCartney is asked about John Lennon, he knows what to say. He has a script of sorts, you see, assembled over the years, a desperate attempt to paper over past mistakes in this particular department. So he’ll nod, and smile, and tell little anecdotes that he’s offered up so many times in the last four decades, they’re now worn smooth, like stones under constant rhythmic waves. Amusing yarns about van sharing and bed sharing are told with the same sweet cadence that would accompany a parent spinning a fairy tale. 

He’ll never share the worry he feels sometimes, that he’s forgetting. The more he tells the stories, the more they feel like just that. Occasionally a frisson of panic will shoot through him, like that moment when you wake from a dream in which you were holding something important, and find your fist clenched around nothing but bedsheet. The more golden the glow around the memory, the less it feels like a true one. He has to work now, to recall John’s face. His real face. Not the caricature slapped everywhere, the one he sees whenever he passes through Liverpool Airport, all nose and glasses and curtains of hair. 

He can remember those features fine - it’s the others he struggles with. The creases on his forehead, his soft peach-coloured freckles, the slight crookedness of his teeth. Teeth that would nibble at his thin bottom lip when he was nervous, leaving a ridge in the fragile skin that Paul could only feel, never see. He tries to tell different stories to friends, to cling on to the past in that way, but the pool of people who knew John, really knew him, is growing more and more shallow.

There’s Ringo, obviously, who is wonderful, but even with him he’s aware that they get caught in a cycle of nostalgia, holding their memories close to their chests, only peeking at the reality of them for moments at a time for fear of ruining them. A fear only amplified when they’re together, as they are so sharply reminded of what, or rather who, they lack.

He’d even tried to talk to Yoko, once. She’d known John in a way few had, after all. He’d told her about Paris. Not all of it, not even close, but he shared details that he’d previously hoarded like precious jewels.

The colour of the Seine in the sun, the way it had reflected those rays back as sparkles, a carpet of day-time stars flowing through the city. The way John had hooted and hollered as he ran alongside it, twirling like a child, calling at Paul to _put his bloody camera away_ and _hurry up,_ though hurry for what, neither of them knew. His throat grew thick as he spoke, the image was hardly the most intimate and yet to him it felt like he was baring his soul.

Yoko had only hummed and nodded into her teacup. She always was infuriatingly objective, immovable. Sometimes he thinks she could and would watch an asteroid hurtling toward Earth in that same way, interested but distant, her fascination betrayed only by the slight lift of her brows and a twitch at the edge of her ever present tightlipped half-smile. (Deep down he knows that’s unfair, he knows through whispered stories and a drunken midnight watch of a horrifying documentary, that when confronted with an actual world-ending event Yoko had broken like everyone else. Only ceasing her wailing when a nurse pressed a cooling wedding band into her trembling hand.)

She’d shared no story of her own, but had reached out and gently grabbed his wrist, rubbing it absently, her far-away gaze locked on the empty white wall. He’d have found her own memories replaying in her dark, dark eyes, had he thought to look. 

It’s after yet another chat show appearance talking about John that these thoughts start to tangle around him, like vines. He’d been acutely aware of the wide-eyed audience (and host) begging to hear about John like he was some great hero, straight from a book of myths and legends, swinging a sword and vanquishing the bores in the 60s press, fundamentalist Christians and Richard Nixon to the underworld in one fell swoop. Rather than, you know, just annoying them a bit. 

He appreciates why, but the more he talks about that John, the more lost his John seems. As though he’s painting over a delicate sketch with thick oil paints. He lies in bed that night, mentally trying to peel that paint off without damaging the image beneath. It’s painstaking, and he falls asleep with a furrowed brow.

Paul is a man who dreams a lot, and as such, he’s pretty much always aware on some level, that he’s dreaming. His body feels airy and the world quicker on its axis, colours are faded but suffused with light, as though everything has been left outside on the sunniest day of the year. John appears in his dreams often, though usually he’s on the periphery. He has a recurring anxiety dream where he stands on stage with a broken bass, the strings snapped and askew. He can sense John looking at him, but as soon as he turns his head to apologise, he snaps awake with a gasp. 

John isn’t on the periphery tonight though. He’s sat beside him. They’re on a soft tartan blanket laid out on some grass, in what looks to be a park. Paul doesn’t know which one, and when he tries to focus on his surroundings they bend and warp, as though he’s viewing them through running water. John, however, is clear as day. His hair, so very auburn in the sun, is soft and swept messily across his pale forehead. He isn’t wearing his glasses, and his slightly unfocused eyes are looking into Paul’s own, questioning. 

“What? Have I got something stuck in my teeth?” he teases, mocking, but not unkind. It’s so _John_ that Paul can’t help but burst out laughing, giddy with delight. His delight doubles when he leans over, and finds that he can rest his giggling head on John’s warm shoulder. The older man (he will always be older than Paul, despite everything) smiles down at him fondly. “You’re mad, you are,” he says, shaking his head a little and tapping at Paul’s arm, a spidery affectionate gesture. 

“Takes one to know one,” Paul snaps back cheekily, enjoying the feel of the brown suede jacket beneath his cheek, feeling more than hearing as John huffs a laugh, a real one, before he pulls away, moving to sit in front of Paul. 

“Har, har, har,” he says, adopting posh affectations that again have Paul sniggering. “Excellent comeback, jolly good.” He turns his nose up, and it’s half a Mimi impression, ruined only by the mirth in his eyes. Paul knows he should say something, say a million things, but the words are all lodged in the bottleneck of his throat, stuck. He can feel them, burning, insistent, spilling up from his heart and making his whole chest ache. So, instead of speaking, he leans forward to press a quick and close-mouthed kiss at the corner of John’s smirk.

When he pulls away, John is smiling. Not sardonically, not to look funny, just a genuine soft smile, the kind that few people actually ever got to see. Paul doesn’t get to enjoy it for long, because John connects their mouths again. It’s slower this time, more languid, as John’s tongue brushes across his lips and gains entrance.

They must have kissed hundreds of times, thousands even, but now Paul tries to grasp onto this feeling, to bottle it. He’s floating, his body lost, the only sensation he has is John. He hopes he’s pushing all those unspoken words into John’s mouth, that they’re breaking like waves in John’s mind, a chorus of _love you, love you, love you_ , sung too late.

The kiss breaks when they hear something in the distance. It sounds like a party, happening just over the brow of the grassy hill. The voices are familiar, though Paul can’t quite place them, his head is still spinning. John stands, gesturing to show that he’s going to go check it out. Paul nods, he couldn’t stand right now even if he wanted to, his legs are jelly. He does call out though, after John’s taken a few steps, a sudden seriousness rolling over him. 

“You’ll come back for me, won’t you?”

John pulls a face, and answers the question as though Paul’s just asked him if the sky is blue, or if the Pope is Catholic. But his voice is warm, affection strung through every word. 

“Of course I will.”

Paul wakes with that promise ringing in his head, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work for this pairing and I am nervous, agh! Any feedback is massively appreciated. 
> 
> Enjoy! x
> 
> (Title is inspired by the song Approximately Infinite Universe by Yoko Ono)


End file.
